


What Men Wanted

by LittleSweetCheeks



Category: Madam Secretary
Genre: F/M, Mild Angst, Not My Fault, introspective, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28715118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSweetCheeks/pseuds/LittleSweetCheeks
Summary: Nadine hated to admit it, but she was no good at relationships.
Relationships: Mike Barnow/Nadine Tolliver
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	What Men Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I made it to day 12 before posting anyway? This one is totally Pillar's fault.

Nadine wasn’t very good at the whole ‘men’ thing.

It wasn’t the sex- the sex she excelled at _thank you very much_. No, her problems were when a man wanted more than just sex. When they wanted more than an ‘evening for two, gone before breakfast’ kind of thing.

Nadine hated to admit it, but she was no good at relationships.

She’d tried a time or two, when a man dangled enough reasons in front of her to make her decide to give it a whirl. She’d even married one of them because hey, why not. But marriage didn’t solve the not being good at relationships bit. In fact, it put the entire problem under a microscope and blew it up until she felt like she was wearing a giant beacon declaring how crap she was at keeping a guy.

Not that she always wanted to _keep_ a guy. It was a bit like keeping a puppy.

=

Boys had started noticing her young.

In kindergarten, three boys had tried to marry her before winter break and she’d kissed two of them before her parents and the teacher had sat her down, explaining that wasn’t appropriate behavior for a lady.

She didn’t tell them that the third boy, Ronnie Dunston, had been heartbroken when he didn’t get a kiss as well so on the playground she’d let him lay under the big dome jungle gym while she climbed so he could see her favorite pair of underwear, pink with white hearts.

Ronnie had still agreed to hold her hand after that, even if she couldn’t kiss him.

She’s mostly learned since then that showing them her unmentionables, which she’s never been shy about mentioning, wasn’t the best prelude to a relationship. The jury was still out, as far as she was concerned, on the kissing.

Or maybe, she wondered, the kissing was part of the problem. There had always been boys, and then men, and then men young enough she could at least think of them as boys, who were willing to kiss and not tell. She was a busy woman who never had time for the upkeep and maintenance of a guy, but they were nice to have around on cold nights or when work got a little too stressful.

It wasn’t like she was _using_ them or anything.

=

By junior high she was much better at giving the boys what they wanted without getting caught… and there were more boys interested in getting whatever little morsel she offered and would work hard to earn her attention.

In sixth grade she got a stack of invites to the winter formal so large that her homeroom teacher had to find her a bag to put them in and it made an enemy out of Wendy Rogers who’d sworn she’d get the most. It hadn’t helped that the invites had been from the most popular sixth, seventh, _and_ eighth grade boys. Wendy claimed to be the most popular girl in school with her platinum blonde hair, perfect little nose, and a chest worth buying a bra for. By contrast her own hair was dull brown, her nose screamed out her heritage, and she was flatter than some of the boys.

She’d never considered, though, to be self-conscious about what her body lacked. Boys still wanted her. Wanted it.

She’d ranked them based on _perks_ she thought they’d be able to offer for the evening. Whose parents would spring for the bigger corsage, who was likely to pick the best restaurants, whose parent drove the nicest car. It was never about a relationship or even making friends. It was all business. They showered her with attention, treated her like a princess, and she let them kiss her behind the bleachers.

The perks were still nice. Now she lived in a world of rich men who had chauffeurs and who could afford entry to the best theaters, the best restaurants, and they asked her to join them all the time. She lived a glamorous kind of life because she didn’t have to _pay_ for anything. If there was a place she wanted to go, she only had to sprinkle hints around, some man or other would trip over themselves to be the first to offer to take her.

She didn’t need all the work of a relationship to be taken care of and really, it wasn’t like she was forcing them to do it. They had free will. So, she was certain no one could claim she was just using them.

==

By the eighth grade formal she didn’t even bat an eye at them getting to second base so long as they came with smuggled beer and a joint. A year later, she discovered her whole body was a commodity that any guy in the school was willing to shell out for. She had sex appeal that turned heads. She didn’t date a single boy in high school but enjoyed the company of a different guy-of-the-week.

They liked physical forms of payment in return for spending their hard-earned money on her. She got good at sex.

By her senior year, she didn’t bother with high school guys anymore, instead going for the older ones. The ones who could buy beer legally and had no qualms financing her weed interests. They didn’t complain about her promiscuity either because they had no desire for a relationship.

She followed one of those boys all over Europe, sleeping through their dance troupe as well as more than a few local support crews before she finally convinced their choreographer that she was worth being unfaithful to his wife.

It hadn’t been hard; the man watched her waltz around in nearly nothing for eight hours a day.

She’d been high as a kite the night an ER nurse told her in bad English that it wasn’t food poisoning caused by eating three-day old, unrefrigerated take-out. She tricked herself for five months that the nurse was wrong. Five months until she couldn’t pull on her costume and her ankles looked like sausages.

She’d returned to the states to clean up her act and have a baby she was only forty percent certain the parentage of.

But having a baby didn’t improve her abilities with men. Who had time to try and start a relationship when there was a baby to care for, work to turn up, sober, for, and night classes to attend?

The husband had been an accident. He’d showered her with so much attention, spoiling her more than she’d ever been spoiled before. And he’d been _rich_! He’d dressed her up and showed her off, the beautiful young thing on the arm of the wealthy but often reclusive man. He’d been kind, willing to give her and her son the moon and stars, but her eyes couldn’t stay on him. She was too used to having the freedom to choose whatever man she desired, and her husband left her with a lot to look around and desire.

=

Things hadn’t improved with age. Thirty years later, she still found herself with a trail of interested and eager men longer than she’d like, willing and available whenever the mood struck. She promised herself after Vincent, no more relationships, she wasn’t good at them and they got messy when feelings started to happen, but…

The first time she laid eyes on Mike Barnow, strutting like an over-confident cock through the seventh floor, a cock strutting through _her_ domain, she knew, _knew_ , she’d eventually fuck him. It wasn’t if, but when, and it irritated her.

She’d set out to just hate him. It didn’t lessen the risk of sex, she’d had plenty of hate sex with this job, but it gave her something to focus on when he was around.

When they did finally fall into bed together it wasn’t fueled by hate, but by alcohol and drunk sex was almost as fun as hate sex so she didn’t mind. It was one night, he’d been a good lay if a bit mouthy, she had no plans for things to get complicated.

Clearly, Mike hadn’t gotten the memo.

Nadine frowned at the surface of her desk and wondered just how she’d screwed up again and ended up in another _relationship_. She knew better, she wasn’t good at those. She knew what was coming next- she’d hurt him. She’d catch sight of some other man and would forget about him and he’d be hurt.

In her experience, men were touchy about being forgotten.

Dragging her eyes up to from the desk, she wondered how to walk it back at this stage. The sex was nice, she didn’t really want to lose the sex, but she had a feeling Mike was the type of guy who wouldn’t be happy with just a ‘benefits’ situation. He was a relationships guy.

She had to end it before she made this who disaster worse.

“Are you okay?”

Nadine had absolutely no idea where the Secretary had appeared from. “Ma’am?” She frowned, irritated that Mike had distracted her from being more aware of her surroundings.

Elizabeth slipped into the room and shut the door. _At least more respectful than the others_ , Nadine grumbled to herself. “You’ve been distracted. Is it about you and Mike?”

“There is no ‘me and Mike’.” Her words had bite and sent her boss’s brows into her hairline. “I’m sorry… I just… I don’t _do_ relationships. I’m no good at them.”

“You were in a relationship with Vincent.”

“Do you recall how that ended?! How it was going to end if he hadn’t been murdered?!”

“Mike won’t kick you to the curb for political expediency.” She watched as Elizabeth tipped her head side to side. “Or plot to overthrow a foreign government-”

“You assume.”

“-Or set you up to spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“I have to end it.”

“Why?”

She tossed her hands up in exasperation. “Because I’m no good at relationships! Why the hell is everyone so invested in this disaster?”

If Elizabeth cared about the swearing, she said nothing. “Everyone?”

Nadine sighed heavily. “Jay and Daisy have both been in here already.”

“That explains why your blinds are all shut.”

“I wanted a bit of privacy.” She pointedly mentioned.

Instead of taking that point, Nadine watched as Elizabeth sat on her couch. “Come on, Nadine, talk to me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The most obvious answer to that would be because you are my boss and it’s not appropriate.”

“Suddenly you care about what’s appropriate with your boss?”

It was bait, she refused to take it. “I’d like to think I do eventually learn from some of my mistakes.”

“Mike loves you.”

“I can’t make him learn from his.”

“You should at least be honest with him.”

“Believe me, that’s a horrible idea.”

“Why?”

She debated a moment. Men never got it, but maybe she’d find a kindred spirit in Elizabeth, a woman she watched brush off advances from men regularly. “Men have always wanted one thing… it’s never been a relationship.”

Her boss didn’t respond but also didn’t seem confused. Instead, she stood and moved to the door, only turning back once her hand was on the handle. “Mike’s different.”

“Every guy thinks he’s different.”

Elizabeth propped the door back as it was and vanished, leaving Nadine to wonder on the sincerity in her words. She blinked and then nearly jumped out of her chair. Mike had almost materialized out of thin air in her doorway. “Why are you here?” It came out hard, but she genuinely was asking. She had no idea if they’d made plans and she’d forgot. That’d happened before.

“I wanted to take my girlfriend to lunch.”

“I’m not your girlfriend, Mike.”

“Fine. I want to take the woman I love out to lunch.”

She scoffed. “You can’t love me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t do this. I don’t do relationships.”

“But… you’ve been doing one for six months.”

“About that… I didn’t mean to. It was a mistake.”

The hurt was obvious, this was what she’d wanted to avoid. He stepped in and pushed shut the door Elizabeth had only propped back open moments before. “Why?” There was no accusation in his tone, only genuine curiosity.

“I’m no good at them. I’m good at this, what we’ve had, no strings.”

His eyes studied her, the hurt look never leaving. “No strings as in, free to sleep with whoever else comes your way.”

“I don’t go looking for them.” She kept that admission soft.

“No.” He dropped his voice to match hers. “But then, you’ve never had to… Have you?” She refused to answer either way on that one but then he didn’t seem to care about her silence. “You think I don’t see the way you turn heads? You think I don’t remember how easy it was to get you into bed with me?”

Her eyes snapped up at him, watching as he didn’t take a seat but instead crouched down, resting his arms on the edge of her desk.

“You are worth more than what you think you can give someone else. Please let me show you that. I’m- I’m not saying the sex isn’t wonderful or that I don’t love taking you out and showing you off-”

“Not proving you’re any different than the rest, Mike.”

“Would you let me finish?” He paused, waiting until she huffed. “I’m not saying those things… But I also love watching TV with you and hearing you sing to yourself while you cook. I love the way your face lights up when you work something out… I love that you are confident and determined and, yeah, the verbal sparring is kinda nice. It’s hard to find a properly intelligent, confident woman in this town who’s available and I’d be willing to date.”

“I have no business doing relationships.”

“Let me worry about that part.”

“Mike…”

“Please let me take you to lunch?”

Nadine stared at him. This was more of the same- a man wanted her time, her attention, and so they bought her something. Her attention had always come with a price tag. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m- I’m sorry, Mike.”

He looked crushed, but stood, taking two steps back. “Okay.”

She hated herself for hurting him and wondered why she cared this time; she’d never cared before. “Wait… Fine, lunch. But… I’ll pay. My treat.” Maybe the trick was earning his attention instead. She had no clue if it would make things work out differently, but if it didn’t, well… she’d never been any good at relationships anyway.


End file.
